The wealthy live in suburbs

At Overcoming Bias, Doug argued that the rich tend to be rural despite the image of urban “SWPLs”. That didn’t sound quite right to me, so I decided to check the GSS.

Frequency Distribution

Cells contain:
-Column percent
-Weighted N

SRCBELT

1
12 LRGST SMSA’S

2
SMSA’S 13-100

3
SUBURB, 12 LRGST

4
SUBURB, 13-100

5
OTHER URBAN

6
OTHER RURAL

ROW
TOTAL

W
E
A
L
T
H

1: Less than $5,000

12.8
12.3

17.5
28.8

8.3
17.0

10.5
26.6

12.1
73.1

13.0
21.5

12.0179.3

2: $5,000 to $20,000

12.5
12.0

14.5
23.9

11.1
22.6

10.2
25.8

12.6
76.4

15.1
24.9

12.5185.6

3: $20,000 to $40,000

9.8
9.4

14.1
23.2

2.6
5.3

6.6
16.8

9.7
59.0

8.3
13.6

8.6127.3

4: $40,000 to $75,000

11.7
11.3

11.1
18.4

10.3
21.0

7.2
18.1

8.1
49.1

8.3
13.7

8.8131.7

5: $75,000 to $100,000

6.5
6.2

7.2
11.9

10.3
21.1

5.6
14.2

6.1
37.2

7.3
12.0

6.9102.7

6: $100,000 to $150,000

12.6
12.1

4.7
7.7

4.7
9.6

6.9
17.4

8.5
51.3

9.2
15.2

7.6113.4

7: $150,000 to $250,000

13.4
12.9

9.6
15.9

8.0
16.2

15.1
38.2

13.4
81.4

11.0
18.1

12.3182.7

8: $250,000 to $500,000

9.7
9.3

15.7
25.9

21.9
44.7

18.9
47.7

16.5
100.2

14.2
23.5

16.9251.2

9: $500,000 to $1 million

8.4
8.1

4.9
8.0

14.8
30.1

14.7
37.2

9.7
58.6

9.3
15.3

10.6157.3

10: $1 million to $2 million

1.9
1.9

.5
.9

4.2
8.5

3.5
8.9

2.6
15.7

4.0
6.6

2.942.5

11: $2 million to $3 million

.0
.0

.3
.4

.9
1.9

.2
.4

.4
2.2

.0
.0

.35.0

12: $3 million to $4 million

.0
.0

.0
.0

2.3
4.8

.0
.0

.0
.0

.3
.4

.45.2

14: $5 million to $10 million

.0
.0

.0
.0

.6
1.3

.0
.0

.1
.9

.0
.0

.12.1

15: Above $10 million

.9
.9

.0
.0

.0
.0

.5
1.3

.1
.9

.0
.0

.23.0

COL TOTAL

100.096.4

100.0165.1

100.0204.2

100.0252.7

100.0605.9

100.0164.8

100.01,489.1

Means

5.01

4.42

6.12

5.83

5.28

5.11

5.36

Std Devs

2.83

2.71

3.01

2.91

2.86

2.89

2.91

Unweighted N

95

171

180

229

601

188

1,464

Color coding:

<-2.0

<-1.0

<0.0

>0.0

>1.0

>2.0

Z

N in each cell:

Smaller than expected

Larger than expected

Summary Statistics

Eta* =

.17

Gamma =

.00

Rao-Scott-P: F(65,2600) =

1.61

(p= 0.00)

R =

.02

Tau-b =

.00

Rao-Scott-LR: F(65,2600) =

1.54

(p= 0.00)

Somers’ d* =

.00

Tau-c =

.00

Chisq-P(65) =

114.53

Chisq-LR(65) =

109.10

*Row variable treated as the dependent variable.

Text for ‘WEALTH’

1092. Please estimate your total wealth. IF ASKED: Wealth means
the value of your house plus the value of your vehicles, stocks
and mutual funds, cash, checking accounts, retirement accounts
including 401(k) and pension assets, and any other assets minus
what you owe for your mortgage and your debts.

I was actually surprised at the rarity of the wealthy in the biggest metropoli.

The size of the real estate parcel and the distinction between suburb and exurb may be confusing this question. Also, where does someone rich enough to own several houses really “live”? If you have a co-op apartment in Manhattan, a winter place on Jupiter Island, and several thousand acres in Colorado, which one is counted as your residence in this survey?

I can think of 2 plausible explanations; the rich may simply be swamped in the teeming millions of the metropolises, and their rural presence could simply be through vacation homes.

(I lived for a little while in a very rural poor area of Maryland. Listening to the locals, I learned that for many houses by the water, land was so expensive and regulations had been tightened so much that they would never have been able to afford to live there if they had not already owned the land, and that sometimes they would not have been allowed to build a house on their land. If my neighbor’s house had not already existed, he literally could not have built it because no part of his property was far enough from the water.)

I wonder if the GSS samples of small groups like rich people are representative at all. Also, the use of GSS to test hypotheses will certainly not be normative if the results are presented in such a difficult to interpret manner as here.

Given the rocketing values of farmland in the Middle West and the huge amounts the Dept. of Agriculture puts out each year to allow these lands to lie fallow, I wonder if the rural will surpass the suburbs soon in land values—making them the next victims of Obummer’s Rockefeller Republicanism…!

I was unaware of the skyrocketing value, particularly with the depressed real-estate market. But I do now recall about the difficulties expanding Amish communities have, and how they have been moving into new areas.